Newcastle makes the final cut

It’s official – Newcastle is through to the finals of Kwêla’s Town of the Year competition.

In a press statement released on behalf of Kwêla and kykNET, Newcastle was confirmed to be KwaZulu-Natal’s representative in the final round of competition.

Can Newcastle join previous winners, Graaff-Reinet, De Rust, Sabie and Fouriesburg?

That depends on your votes – official voting lines are open between July 15 and 19 before the final counts are tallied and the winner determined.

The eight other finalists are as follows:

Wellington (Western Cape), Jeffreys Bay (Eastern Cape), Douglas (Northern Cape), Petrus Steyn (Free State), Thabazimbi (Limpopo), Middelburg (Mpumalanga), Meyerton (Gauteng and North West) and Swakopmund (Namibia).

The winning town receives marketing airtime on kykNET to the value of R1-million.

Before the victor takes the spoils and is celebrated with a concert on September 5, each of the finalist towns will be visited for the purpose of highlighting attractions, landmarks and conducting interviews, as well as awareness campaigns.

“The aim of this competition is to introduce smaller towns of Southern Africa to the public and introduce their history, places of interest and people to the rest of Southern Africa. Previous winning towns confirmed tourism definitely increased, which saw bigger tourist figures and created jobs in their region.” Further details on the voting process will be revealed in weeks to come.